Since 1990, American taxpayers alone have borne all increases in court budgets. Aliens pay no more today to file a case in immigration courts than they did in 1990. Through 2010, filing fees have not kept pace with the 276 percent rate of increase in government spending, the 70 percent cumulative rate of inflation, or the 823 percent increase in court budgets.1 From 2000 through 2007, taxpayers even paid the court costs  some $30 million  of aliens who appealed deportation ordersin asylum cases, but also for crimes they committed in the United States and for fraudulent marriages they entered.

Citizens and non-citizens in any other courts pay their own filing fees and court costs  but not in immigration courts. Despite years of taxpayer support, at no time have aliens been asked to contribute more to the processes of justice from which they stand to gain the most.

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Lengthy, but interesting read by Mark H. Metcalf - a former judge on the immigration court in Miami, Fla.

Obama goin' soft on illegal immigration for the Hispanic vote...White House loosens border rules for 2012June 20, 2011 - President Barack Obamas administration is quietly offering a quasi-amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants aiming to win reelection by mobilizing a wave of new Hispanic voters without alienating the populous at large, say supporters of stronger immigration law enforcement.

The new rules were quietly announced Friday with a new memo from top officials at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The prosecutorial discretion memo says officials need not enforce immigration laws if illegal immigrants are enrolled in an education center or if their relatives have volunteered for the US military. Theyre pushing the [immigration] agents to be even more lax, to go further in not enforcing the law, said Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state. At a time when millions of Americans are unemployed and looking for work, this is more bad news coming from the Obama administration [if the administration] really cared about putting Americans back to work, it would be vigorously enforcing the law, he said.

We think it is an excellent step, said Laura Vasquez, at the Hispanic-advocacy group, La Raza, which pushed for the policies, and which is working with other groups to register Hispanics to vote in 2012. Whats very important is how the prosecutorial discretion memo is implemented on the streets, she said.

The Hispanic vote could be crucial in the 2012 election, because the Obama campaign hopes to offset its declining poll ratings by registering new Hispanic voters in crucial swing states, such as Virginia and North Carolina. To boost the Hispanic vote, the administration has enlisted support from Hispanic media figures, appointed an experienced Hispanic political operative to run the political side of the Obama reelection campaign, and has maintained close ties to Hispanic advocacy groups, including La Raza. For example, La Razas former senior vice president and lobbyist, Cecilia Munoz, was hired by the Obama administration as director of intergovernmental affairs in 2009.

On Friday, officials at ICE announced several new administrative changes to immigration enforcement. The primary document was the six-page prosecutorial discretion memo, which provided new reasons for officials to not deport illegal immigrants.

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